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Oversteering

Well, Hyperion had one effect for certain – the total number of wormhole connecting “things” has gone up dramatically. Otherbloggers picked up on this as well. Where we used to have pretty short chains (C4->C3->Empire), I shall here present you with a screen shot of our mapping tool. It outlines a typical week-night with 2 people scanning – there were many more connections that did not make it on the map because of ~ effort ~.

Now on one side, this does have the desired effect of connecting everyone with everyone, “content” is always found. The term “Content” is generally used by elite PvP-ers to describe carebears waiting to be slaughtered. The problem is, even carebears look at this map and realize that life has become a lot more dangerous and re-evaluate their options. Corbexx predicts a rather substantial drop in residence. I am not quite as negative about it but the current connection density does not allow a small, casual corporation to survive long in Wormhole Space. Maybe that is CCP’s aim anyway, maybe they over-steered and will be dialing back over time.

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6 responses to “Oversteering”

I believe CCP has made it noticeably more difficult for smaller and more casual groups in WH space. I strongly doubt they were deliberately looking to force such groups out of WH space. I suspect they had mistakenly thought everyone was gung-ho and just looking for easier PVP, without putting enough thought towards people still being able to farm ISK to afford to PVP. In my ignorant humble opinion anyway.

Well, my humble question back – what were they doing with the ISK that they made? Corbexx uses his sweet little carebear cave to make ISK so that his oh-so-elite PvP toon can strut in pimped ships. Others make ISK to fight in null or low or… Bottom line, if Wormholes – or any region – were ISK machines who would not want to live here? We (Illusion of Solitude) lives in Wormhole space because this is where we live. We fight, we build, we farm, we die in Wormhole Space. ISK we make is designed to fuel towers and get us boats that we will lose.

My claim would be that big WH pvp corps caused the exodus of smaller wh corporations that they are now complaining about.

That’s because pvp is not consensual in most cases. The majority of combats is ganks.
If I lived in a wormhole and once a week I would lose a ship due to an ambush that would be a calculated cost of living there.

If I live in a wormhole and I get evicted by overwhelming force because the big gus feel that wh space is for pvp-ers only I will pack up and leave of my own choice.
Perhaps if big corporations wouldn’t evict every carebear there might a bit more incentive to stay

Not every big or serious wh corp will spent all their time evicting carebears that refuse to fight back but it illustrates the case. Wormhole space will be mostly empty because it does not cater to the casual player.
I am definately not asking for changes to wormhole space to make it more accessable but it’s time the big hunters realize the lack of prey is because prey is not evolving as fast the predators are.

Slightly sorry for the rant above because it might not be that coherent.

Instead of rolling wormholes and creating new chains we now have bigger chains. Is my claim that WH pvp corporations are bringing the exodus of targets upon themselves pure bullshit or might there be some truth in it?
Are people leaving because there are bigger chains (game mechanic) or because they feel more risk of eviction from other players

Hi Raziel. I agree with you on a couple of things but not necessarily on the conclusion. Wormhole PvP has always been non-consensual, thats part of the fun. If we run sites and are in our PvE ships, we may get ganked and lose ships and Pods. It happens, we do (well, we try to) the same to others. Consensual PvP is pretty much limited to C5 and C6 corporations who face each other every day and have some RvB-like relationship with each other. Me, I prefer the brutal, cold and unforgiving way of the “lower class” wormholes.

Evictions are a very different matter but to be honest, I don’t think Hyperion has changed anything about that. The frigate holes may have made it harder to evict someone since scouts can jump in / out much easier now and hole control is a lot harder since the jump distance is changed. The mass limits for lower class holes still prohibits Caps and without it, a POS bash is no fun, not something anyone wants to do.

Whether WH space caters to the casual player – I think that remains to be seen. It is part of a greater design question whether EVE as a whole caters to the casual player or whether we have to find another game. I really like Space Engineers at the moment.

On the more positive side, if the carebear corporations can not survive, they have two choices – move out or bone up. There are plenty of ways to make yourself into a very hard target and I can see carebear corporations developing wings of dedicated PvP-ers and scouts to counter the threat.

The biggest change is that smaller (PvP or PvE) corporations are losing out, thats what Corbexx is afraid of. I am on the fence. On one side, larger corporations will have more access to routes and “content” than smaller ones but on the other side, their own holes (and their alt holes) will be a lot more dangerous to run. Income won’t be that easy anymore. I can see a middle ground where smaller but hard-hitting corps and alliances can balance PvE and PvP and “own the rights to their holes”.

Bottom line, get friends, recruit fighters, join an alliance or move out. But above all, don’t be a victim.

They could have made the lower level holes more profitable so more small groups would want to live in them, thus increasing the number of pilots out doing stuff. Instead they made wh space far more dangerous and smaller groups will take a disproportionate amount of hit. Large groups in C5s and C6s will basically keep on doing what they are doing with maybe a couple more alt accounts required to picket holes. Glad I moved out earlier this year. Ratting ns is boring, but generates an acceptable amount of isk considering the ships I have to put at risk.

I agree that the risk has gone up and the reward staid the same. That should force the drive for e.g. Nano ribbons up, right? Well, it’s not that easy. It means that larger and better organized corporations run their static holes more. But it’s not all doom and gloom. Smaller outfits can for defense agreements, join alliances, merge with other corps and share their holes. This is content as well. Like in the real world, adapt or die. My corp is adapting, we have new doctrines, naming conventions for holes, roles and so on. Our goal is to shape our corp into one that excels in this environment and not lament what we have lost.